Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Those Wacky Rightwing Womb-bats are at it again! Yes zygote zealots in Florida are attempting to bring their own brand of lunacy to the state legislature.

Anti-abortion conservatives are proposing a new constitutional amendment that critics claim would make it a crime to take birth control pills in Florida.

The "Personhood Amendment" that conservative activists are filing today in Tallahassee would add language to the state constitution that defines someone as a "person," regardless of age or health status, "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." ...

On the group's side is the American Life League, a socially conservative Virginia-based organization that is supporting similar amendments in about two dozen states. The national group spent $250,000 on a campaign that put a similar question on Colorado's ballot in 2008. Voters rejected that measure roughly 3-1.

Though the wording of that proposal differs from the one pending in Florida, their meanings are similar. The 2008 proposal in Colorado defined human beings at "the moment of fertilization." The Florida amendment refers to "the beginning of the biological development," which McEwen defined in a Thursday interview to mean a fertilized egg.

That, opponents say, would make it a crime not just to kill a fetus by abortion, but also to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman's uterus as birth control pills can. "By their definition, anything that you might do to interfere with the implantation of a fertilized egg would be tantamount to murder," said Marc Farinella, a campaign consultant for Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, presumptive Democratic candidate for governor.

As described by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, birth control pills and intrauterine devices work partly by causing the lining of the uterus to thin, "making it less likely that a fertilized egg can attach to it."

And what about those eggs? It always about the pre-hatched, um, pre-born - doesn't anybody crusade for the pre-fertilized ones?

2 comments:

Oh, GREAT. One more winger-whackjobbity grab at women's rights. Well, at least this one is really gonna fail, because Pill use cuts across all color, class and politico-religious lines. That means these wankers will have finally run out of talking points, and will be forced to either recycle past failures or shut the fuck up.

Plus, this whole amendment begs the question: Are sperm and eggs dead? Because if life begins at conception, well...

Oh, I know--let's hold funerals everytime someone has a miscarriage or gets her period! That way, we'll have all the bases covered. We might make complete asses of ourselves, but at least we won't be denying personhood to the egg, fertilized or otherwise!